The new £3.5 million Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) fund from producer compliance schemes aims to boost recycling and reuse of small electrical and electronic devices in the UK. The fund will allow households to dispose of items that are often not collected for recycling at the end of their life.

The fund is segmented into two parts. The allocation of £3 million will be open for any UK waste collection authority for rolling out or expanding kerbside collection. The remaining £0.5 million will be allocated to support reuse organizations in building capacity, expanding their collection network and upgrading their reuse, testing and repair operations.

Scott Butler, WEEE Fund Manager stated that the investment will focus on select areas such as kerbside collection and reuse networks. The innovative approach to increase e-scrap recycling will open up new ways for people to recycle their small electrical waste. The WEEE Fund will partner with local authorities, businesses and community groups in various projects aimed at encouraging recycling and reuse of small electrical household waste, Butler added.

An online survey carried out recently by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Royal Society of Chemistry among 2,353 adults in the UK aged between 16 and 75 years had revealed that the UK households are stockpiled with millions of unused electronic devices.

The UK recycles approximately half-a-million tons of electronic waste every year, but that represents only a fraction of the electronic waste that ends up in landfills or stored in households, data suggests.